Hi Ho Silver! Nathan's DC5R

[Nathannnnn]

Just thought you guys might like to see my budget/ghetto ass wheels collection

[Beatz]

Haha awesome! I'm interested to hear what your custom exhaust sounds like! So Is it the R33 Legalis R muffler with a Custom pipe? You should post a sound clip!

[Nathannnnn]

Haha awesome! I'm interested to hear what your custom exhaust sounds like! So Is it the R33 Legalis R muffler with a Custom pipe? You should post a sound clip!

Thanks man! I've been meaning to. It's quite a deep exhaust and drones a bit. 3 inch life..

[Nathannnnn]

Between work and uni there's been a fair bit happening with the car. I'll do a proper update when I get time but I'll leave this here for now

[Nathannnnn]

Most recent updates

I picked up some PLM header with a cat and Hardrace engine mounts courtesy of Peaches, sad to see him selling his car. Also picked up an ep3 sway bar for clearance from another member who's name escapes me.


Had some mates help me out. Was a straightforward job except for a single inconvenient bolt in the catback which had exhaust silicone in the threads. We ended up angle grinding it off. lol
I'm surprised at how much of a difference headers and engine mounts both made to my car. There's much more mid range response now and shifts are quick! It also made the car noticeably louder and increasingly unbearable to drive daily. haha


Also built my own splitter. Why spend a ridiculous amount of money on something that will probably get scratched up and break when you can make your own!
The total built cost of the splitter was around $70 with everything bought at Bunnungs except for the endplates which I made out of acrylic. Originally I was going to take off the sti lip for the splitter but due to the way its mounted its sits ridiculously low so I have to run both lips. SO MANY LIPS. Looks like this will be track only as I physically can't get the car out of my street wit the splitter mounted. I'll look at addressing this in the future.
Some pictures of the process!

Reinforced brackets:


Mounting bracket:


Strong enough for me to stand on! It bent down at the front in the picture but with the support rods it'll be even stronger


Test mounted


A long long time ago I purchased a replica mugen wing off fellow forum member Butters. I decided I might as well put it to use. Being the sub-par quality rep it was I found that the angle of the wing was quite limited and looked like it would only be producing up force! So I looked at getting custom wing mounts made up to address the issue (and add some height). In the end I decided to opt for a cheaper, quicker more practical option (as I always do) and instead bought some steel brackets from bunnings for no more than $5, drilled some holes in them and I was done!
Bigger big wang!


the wing end plates were quite poor quality, so I attended to the issue by hiding it behind manga (might car mods inspired):


Also did the fuel injector wire tuck mod thing. Love the look of it!


Here's the finished product at the recent Honda Network event in Melbourne! I also picked up a pair of TE37's for a steal! The ghetto wheel collection grows!


That's about it for now, next thing is some new tyres before I hit the track again in August(hopefully)!

[felixR]

Impressive. Good work!

[Nathannnnn]

Thanks Felix!

[Nathannnnn]

Time for another update! It seems like melbourne was giving us a special treat this weekend with all but perfect weather! Saturday was track day! Headed up to winton for another track day hosted by tampered. This time i felt like I was a lot more prepared than the previous track day, I had prepped the car (not totally but more so than last time) and had done my research.



First session was just to re-familiarise myself with the track. The car was understeering a fair amount and I attributed this to the poor condition of the tyres (they were 7 years old) so after coming back into the bay I dropped the front tyre pressures in a hope to gain some more grip and full maxed the damping at the rear to try and reduce the understeer.




After doing so and feeling a little more confident I headed out a second time to find that my car felt a lot better but was still suffering from understeer. I then decided before the 3rd session that the wing would come off.



The wing isn't of the best quality (being a replica) but to my surprise I immediately felt the difference after removing it. The rear end was a lot less planted and allowed me to bring it around corners a lot better.



During the fourth session my rear bar fell off my car. I was totally oblivious to this until the next lap when I saw a silver bumper on the side of the track and realised it was mine! Our reactions were caught on my in-car camera.
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v...type=2&theater
luckily it was a spare bar that I had decided to put on instead of using my good condition one.

Overall it was a great day! I can feel my lines getting neater, my braking getting better and my overall confidence improving. Overall the result was a total of 5 seconds of my previous pb! Bringing down to 1.50. Honestly I was hoping to at least break into the 1.40s but with the tyres I had I knew it wouldn't be possible.

Things I need to get onto before next track day:
- Good tyres
- Better brake pads
- maybe a cold air intake and slotted rotors depending on available funds.

Sunday was Melbourne Honda Clubs end of month meet! It was great to see that many of the guys decided to attend even after tracking the day before. Only took one photo


Thanks to Andrew and Jaz for the helpful tips, and thanks to everyone else for a great weekend!
That's all for now!

[butter]

Good work on getting the PB. You'll get into the 1:49's at the next track day for sure.

How come you didn't end up using the front splitter?

[Nathannnnn]

Good work on getting the PB. You'll get into the 1:49's at the next track day for sure.

How come you didn't end up using the front splitter?

Thanks man! I don't feel like I've earned the right to use a front splitter yet. haha!

[DaRKNT]

You're most welcome buddy. Thanks for the passenger session.

[mugsee]

Nice update on your progress.

Good tyres + better brake pads will definitely help with the cars consistency. I'm not so convinced about slotted rotors though.

[Nathannnnn]

Nice update on your progress.

Good tyres + better brake pads will definitely help with the cars consistency. I'm not so convinced about slotted rotors though.

Thanks mugsee! May I ask why(about the slotted rotors)?

[Nathannnnn]

Think it's time for another update!

Among some other things, I managed to get a hold of a Simota Cold air intake. It has more or less the same design as the injen so installation was pretty straight forward except for the fact that it didnt come with an after market washer bottle so I had to improvise.
Ended up using one of my sister's water bottles. Ghetto mods prevail again!




Tampered Track day 9th march 2015:

So for my next track day I purchased a set of Nankang Ns2r's in 235/35/17 for a really good price!

In it's track set-up. Again I'm not running the front splitter, I need to modify the mounting position so it doesn't sit 2cm off the ground. lol


First session of the day was really good. Tyres felt a million times better than the p.o.s tyres I had been tracking with prior and we had been given almost perfect weather conditions on the day.
Second session I managed to get a P.b of 1:48. I was finally in the 40's! Felt like I had finally found my groove with some proper rubber.



Third session I was keen to bring my lap times down further but alas, it wasn't meant to be. I had used up all of my brake pad by the end of the session and the stock rotors were just about gone, which virtually put an end to my track day.
Overall it was a really good day with a great result. Looking at the lap times I was getting fairly consistent 1:49/8's when I wasn't stuck behind traffic. It's a shame I couldn't get any more hot laps in to try and bring my time down further but I guess it'll just have to wait

Things to improve for next track day:
- Brakes
- Brake later and harder
- more aggressive alignment?

[kevinnguyens]

how much rearbar did you lose this time?